Business Plan idea: farmer's market

Access to fresh fruits and vegetables seems to be a barrier to good health in many places across the U.S.-- especially low-income city areas and poor rural areas. Should public health be involved in creating farmer's markets?

Why not? Columbus, Ohio is doing it-- they have a public health farmer's market in a downtown neighborhood-- and it takes food stamps.

A team from rural eastern North Carolina-- the Northeast Partnership represents a group of counties in the state's northeast corner-- has written a business plan to create a farmer's market in their community. In addition to a market, the Northeast Partnership team plans to use churches as a distribution point for a "CSA" style product. CSA stands for community-supported agriculture; generally a CSA works like a subscription. Every week or so, subscribers get a set amount of produce, whatever is fresh at that point in the season.

The role of public health in this process? Bring together partners, money, and information.

First, assessment: the Northeast Partnership knows that access to healthy food is a major problem for portions of their community. Partners: they have existing partnerships with local churches and church networks that have a strong interest in health ministry. Money: they have grant finding and grant writing skills and a track record of finding start-up funds.

The partnership is now pursuing grants from two different directions: from public health sources that fund healthy food and exercise programs, and from agriculture sources like USDA that support local farmers. That money will be used to jump-start a natural market.

By natural market I mean organic produce-- but I also mean that the market is designed to become self-sustaining, generating enough revenue to go by itself without requiring huge amounts of time and effort from the public health department.

--Stephen Orton